


delirious

by shishiswordsman



Series: tales from the sea (oneshot collection) [1]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Illnesses, M/M, Major Character Injury, Relationship Status: "It's Complicated"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:15:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22201684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shishiswordsman/pseuds/shishiswordsman
Summary: “How curious,” he murmurs, slowly. “What are the odds of us meeting here?”He asks that even though he knows the answer. Before docking on any island, he always asks that from the cards, halfway hoping, halfway dreading the answer. Today, the likelihood of him meeting Trafalgar Law here, on this island the size of a fly’s shit, had been less than five percent.
Relationships: Basil Hawkins/Trafalgar D. Water Law
Series: tales from the sea (oneshot collection) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1598140
Comments: 4
Kudos: 53





	delirious

**Author's Note:**

  * For [codedredalert](https://archiveofourown.org/users/codedredalert/gifts).



That morning, Hawkins reaches for his deck over a steaming cup of coffee. The air’s crisp around him, raising his skin on goosebumps, and the pale light of the early morning reflects off the card’s image. He asks his question, draws two cards. Interesting, Hawkins thinks, looking at the cards, his eyebrows drawing lower on his face.

Ten of swords and six of cups. Hm.

He’s not sure how to interpret that.

Confusion lifts its veil seven hours and thirty-two minutes later, when they dock by the shore of a small trading port. It’s a winter island, and yet Hawkins can see tall pillars of smoke on the farside of the island. Forest fire, some local fisherman tells Faust. Hawkins draws a card. The probability of that being the case is less than 2 percent.

With his errands completed, he’s meandering back to the Grudge Dolph when it happens. A sound, behind him, and then a familiar hue of blue that envelops him. Something thuds to the ground, cursing heavily. Hawkins knows what he’ll see before he turns around.

“How curious,” he murmurs, slowly. “What are the odds of us meeting here?”

He asks that even though he knows the answer. Before docking on any island, he always asks that from the cards, halfway hoping, halfway dreading the answer. Today, the likelihood of him meeting Trafalgar Law here, on this island the size of a fly’s shit, had been less than five percent.

It’s been many long months since he’s seen him last. Law looks terrible, now—his skin ashen, his eyes sunken into his face, his lips pale. He glares at Hawkins from under bloodied and bruised brows, chest heaving with exertion.

“Fuck off,” is all he says, in the way of a greeting.

“Polite as ever.” Hawkins quirks a small, lazy smile. “I know for a fact you have more words in your vocabulary than that. Use them.”

“I’m not interested in playing your games,” Trafalgar grinds out, through gritted, blood-stained teeth. He looks close to passing out, Hawkins observes quietly; but climbs to his feet nonetheless. He unsheathes his sword, eyes narrowed, focused yet hazy. His tattooed hand shakes, strains under the effort of holding on to a blade that’s longer than he is tall. “Leave me, Basil-ya.”

“As you wish,” Hawkins agrees. He turns around, but only has the time to take two steps before there’s a groan behind him. It’s the sound someone makes seconds before their knees give out, and Hawkins doesn’t need cards to predict the future, now.

He doesn’t even bother turning around before summoning his crewmen to him with a miniature Den Den Mushi. Idly, as he waits, Hawkins fiddles with the deck of cards in his pocket.

Curious, indeed.

* * *

He brings Trafalgar to his ship.

He can't find it in himself to leave him there in that ratty alley—they do have history, and even for a pirate it’s not like Hawkins is entirely inconsiderate. After Law's been cleaned and looked over by their doctor, Hawkins now knows that most of the blood that had all but coated Law’s skin belongs to others. He doubts they look any better than Trafalgar does, now—if they’re breathing, still. 

Trafalgar has a fever born of exhaustion rather than an infection, and he’s severely dehydrated and malnourished. Thinking back to the time they shared in the past, Law and him, Hawkins feels rather confident wagering that most of that is Trafalgar’s own doing. He’s a terrible patient.

Still, his chances of making a full recovery are in the high eighties, and the planets are in a favourable position for healing right now, so Hawkins isn’t overly worried. The six of cups makes a lot more sense.

Trafalgar is asleep in his bed, in the captain’s quarters of the Grudge Dolph. It’s a bed he’s slept in before, many times, one they’ve shared. Never like this, though—never hurt and pained and barely there.

It’s been five hours now, which is by far the longest Hawkins has ever seen Trafalgar down for the count. Even after a night spent together, with their bones aching and muscles groaning from exhaustion, Law always only slept for a couple of hours before waking. He doesn’t want to let his guard down, Hawkins understands; but it’s always felt like there was something more to that, something Law refused to let slip through.

Now that he’s too drained to force himself awake, he sleeps the deep sleep of those who have come close to walking with the dead. His sleep has been restless, still; the sleep of someone pained, someone who has dreams they’d rather avoid. Hawkins’ doctor had suggested sedating Trafalgar, but Hawkins had turned him down. If Law doesn’t have the decency to ask for aid, or to at least explain himself in some way, then Hawkins is not too inclined to waste narcotics on him.

So, he sits with Law—charting their course, writing in the logbook. He wonders, though. Where are Trafalgar’s crewmen? What happened to him?

The cards are fickle when he asks this. They refuse to reveal anything helpful, which Hawkins assumes to mean that he’s to aim these questions to Law himself.

Just then, he hears Law stir in his bed, his limbs twitching. Hawkins catches a firm hold of Law’s wrist as the younger captain reaches blindly for his sword, his eyes half-open.

“Are you physically incapable of resting for eight hours in a row? Some doctor, you are.”

“I’m, I’m—fine. ‘M fine,” Law slurs. It seems to fail in convincing even himself. “Where’s… Who?”

He struggles to get out of Hawkins’ reach, his movements jerky, almost frantic. His eyes are glazed over and almost unseeing, unfocused, his skin pebbled with pearls of cold sweat. Hawkins scowls. “I don’t wish to restrain you, Trafalgar, but I will if you make me. Lay. Still.”

A strand of his blond hair falls loose from the braid he’d tied his hair into earlier, catching a glint of candle light. And, much to Hawkins’ surprise, Law blinks, dazed, fixated on his flaxen hair. He lifts his hand to reach out to the lock of hair, not quite reaching it.

“Cora-san?”

Hawkins doesn’t recognise that name, but Law says it with a weight that’s not lightly placed on any ordinary word. This person, whoever they are, are of dire importance to Law—someone he calls out to when he’s in pain. And Hawkins doesn’t know what to do about that; not with Law staring at him like this, not with how he almost sounds scared. He looks so open as he is, so unguarded that it’s almost whiplash to Hawkins’ senses, so utterly unused to seeing Trafalgar like this.

In an act of self-preservation, he looks away, says, “You’re ill, Trafalgar. Rest now.”

And, reluctantly, Law does.

When he wakes again hours later, he’s lucid enough to tell Hawkins to fuck off with his own name. He’s parched but refuses to drink anything that’s not a spirit. Hawkins has to pour the drink for him because his own hands shake so badly.

“I’ve taken the liberty to contact your ally,” he says, when Trafalgar’s drained three quarters from a tall glass of dark rum.

Law sets the drink down, grimacing. “Straw Hat-ya? Should have just let me die, then.”

“The probability of you reuniting with your crew was the highest with an element of chaos involved,” Hawkins states, dryly. “I don’t appreciate you judging the ways I went out of my way to keep you from leaving this realm, Trafalgar.”

Law waves his hand in the air; a clear dismissal. “Whatever. Wake me up when Luffy gets here.”

Hawkins feels his face twitch. When he speaks, his voice is caustic. “As you wish.”

Quiet, then. Law watches Hawkins intently for a moment, the look in his eyes a piercing one. He sighs. “We were ambushed. I had to strain my powers to teleport my crew back to the Polar Tang, and it left me, well.” He gestures to himself, his gaunt cheeks and bruised eyes. It’s explanation enough.

Hawkins nods. “Who ambushed you?”

“Some assholes not worth mentioning,” Law says, an annoying prevarication. He looks up, then; stares at Hawkins for a few seconds, something contemplative flashing on his features. “Kaido’s not too fond of you either, is he? I suggest you relocate.”

The forced nonchalance Trafalgar says the words with is belied by the large sip he takes from his drink right after, undermined by the pinch in his brow.

Hawkins nods, ignoring the tension. Trafalgar has a tendency to be an overanxious prick—him being worried is hardly an anomaly. “I’ll do a reading, but the log pose should set within a few hours. We’ll wait until then.”

Law rolls his eyes. “You and your fucking card tricks. I should burn them.”

“Those card tricks have saved your life before.”

Hawkins gets up. He turns to leave the room, shoulders squared. He needs to talk to Faust about correcting their course, and consult the cards to see how probable of an attack on his crew really is. “A pleasure as always, Trafalgar Law.”

He gets to the door, fingers brushing the handle, when Trafalgar stops him with six words.

“Thank you, Hawkins-ya. For helping me.”

There’s a softness to Law’s tone that Hawkins has rarely heard before. And perhaps it’s the use of his first name instead of his last—or some insult—or maybe it’s the way Law meets his eyes when he looks at him over his shoulder. And, Hawkins finds himself nodding, lips curving into a gentle smile.

Sometimes, he misses the months before Wano, the days when Law ensnared his soul, intertwined their fates with a surgeon’s precision; every word, every look a new stitch to bind them. And sometimes, the regret he feels over them is perfervid, all consuming.

He’d asked the cards about it, once, on a night of desperation and too much alcohol. The probability of survival with Law in his life was less than one percent; no matter what combination he used, what he tried. Their fates, when combined, would always lead to ruin.

And so, when Law leaves hours later, holding his ears as Straw Hat yells about a giant snail, Hawkins lets him go.

**Author's Note:**

> tfw you dont know shit about tarot but you wanna write fic about a character who's basically just 40 tarot cards in a trench coat, so you spend 5 hours readin up on it and still understand nothing


End file.
